Now Met poster girl who won £37,000 over racism wants £144k from watchdog too
A FORMER firearms officer who won a £37,000 racism payout from Scotland Yard is now seeking £144,000 from the police watchdog for discrimination.
Carol Howard, who appeared in Metropolitan Police posters with her semiautomatic rifle during the London Olympics, left the force after winning her tribunal case in 2014.
The 39- year- old then joined the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) – but she claims that the watchdog, which investigates misconduct and racism, is itself institutionally racist and corrupt.
Miss Howard said she suffered racial discrimination and victimisation during her six-month stint as an IPCC investigator – and alleged that some of her colleagues secretly supported the racist officers they were investigating.
She told the Central London Employment Tribunal: ‘The white managers I worked with are not independent and believe that their duty is not to investigate wrongdoing officers but to protect the reputation of the police force concerned and its senior officers in particular. They are corrupt.’
Miss Howard, of Coulsdon, Surrey, said her initial application to work at the IPCC had been rejected without interview.
But in October 2016 the mother was successful after re-applying for the job under her married name of McCabe.
She claimed that her new employer had panicked when she changed her name back to Carol Howard on the police system and IPCC bosses had been fearful that hiring her ‘ could be regarded by the Met as an act of revenge against the police’.
She said: ‘I was treated as an embarrassment to them as my presence would annoy the Met and my visible presence may cause a meltdown’.
The IPCC banned her from working on any cases investigating the Metropolitan Police, the tribunal heard.
She said: ‘I am a diligent and professional person. I had done nothing wrong. Moreover, I was the victim. I was discriminated against and victimised by the Met. I won my claims.
‘I believe that the IPCC moved to restrict me and hide me away.
‘I was therefore undermined in my role even before I walked in through the front door on day one. Rather than believe in me, they believed in their own need to pro- tect their reputation by not upsetting the Met.’ She said she had also later been sidelined from other major investigations.
Miss Howard claimed other black and ethnic minority IPCC officers told her they had been ‘treated differently’ from their white colleagues and suffered from a ‘hostile working environment’.
She said: ‘In my view, the IPCC is an institutionally racist employer. It is therefore unfit to investigate claims of race discrimination against the police.
‘It is corrupt and not fit for purpose. It is neither independent nor impartial. It protects senior white police officers.’
Miss Howard accused the IPCC of covering up the racism of a senior police officer whom she was tasked to investigate.
She left the IPCC after the watchdog decided against renewing her contract in March last year. The IPCC was replaced in January by a reformed police complaints organisation, the Independent Office for Police Conduct.
It strongly rejects all the allegations made by Miss Howard and is vigorously contesting her tribunal claim. She is seeking £144,000 in damages for loss of earnings and injury to feelings.
In 2014, a tribunal found Miss Howard had been bullied, harassed and victimised while serving as one of only two black women officers in the Metropolitan Police’s 700-strong Diplomatic Protection Group.
Her £ 37,000 award included aggravated damages over distress she suffered at the hands of one colleague, who had been ‘malicious, vindictive and spiteful’.
She quit the Metropolitan Police after serving in the force for 14 years. Her latest tribunal, expected to last two weeks, continues.
‘Corrupt and not fit for purpose’